“Atheism isn’t winning” and other insights into self deception of the religious

“Atheism isn't winning in the world. Quite the opposite. Besides atheists reproduce at a slower rate than people of faith. We’ll see who is right. ”


The above is a synopsis of a reply I received from a Catholic believer to a Huffington Post comment I left about another disgusting Church misstep. It demonstrates the degree of denial that pervades the unthinking mind of the religious. My reply follows:

Respect for reality, for science, for allowing women to control their own bodies is winning. Acceptance of people for who they are, not for who they love is winning. Realizing killing in the name of a god is delusional, is winning. Reason over myth is winning.

Oh… no, not among the third world nations, the least educated, the most impoverished, the most hopeless and repressed. In that respect you're right. Islam is growing faster than any other religion, then Mormonism and the Evangelical branches of Xtianity in those places. There religion and its promise of a better life after death will always flourish. For indeed, much as though a cup of warm urine would be welcomed by a dehydrated person in the throes of death, so too will those who have nothing to lose drink the poison of delusion and false promise that is religion and the supernatural.

The number of atheists in Europe, Japan, Australia/NZ, and the US has been growing in double digits for years, while those identifying as Christian has steadily declined. People come to reason on their own, not en mass like sheep through religious indoctrination. I know few who were born into an atheist family and "brought up" atheist. Virtually all the atheists I know were once religionists who came to reason - through reason.

It's not about reproducing so children can be brainwashed at infancy into belief or non-belief, albeit that's the Church's preferred method. It's about the exponential growth in respect for science and scientific discovery; communication via internet spreading fact and truth; undeniable shrinking of blind beliefs and growth in demand for evidence that makes secular numbers increase.

And no, we won't see. We'll both be dead. It will be another 60-80 years, based on poll extrapolations before the US is majority non-believers, and before the practitioners of supernaturalism and ignorance in the other industrialized nations are but a small minority...like Druids, and dismissed as clinging cultists, like Scientologists.

Meanwhile, I will happily watch the implosion of the Church under its own perversion, corruption and lies; watch its influence continue to decline, parishes close, priest position go unfilled, the unending prosecution for misdeeds; and watch countries start taxing them.

But deny all you like; reject the Pew and Gallop Polls over the past decade; turn a blind eye to the increase in secularism in the industrialized / educated / and producing world. It makes no difference. Christianity is witnessing its own near death experience. Reality doesn't change because you reject it, ignore it, or fear it.

{{{  NOTE TO MY READERS: I will be interviewed on "Atheists Talk", a radio show live from MN, this Sunday January 27 at 10:00 am (eastern) that's 9:00 a.m. Central time. Here's the link to listen live.  Sign in as a Minnesota state resident.  http://www.am950radio.com/am950-podcasts .  Enjoy. }}}}